I’ll be the first to admit I may have missed something, but when I read the stories about Auburn’s “Big Cat” weekend and, well, pretty much anything Junior’s done over the last five months, there have been plenty of references to secondary violations, but no mention of penalties for committing same.

Georgia has self-reported six secondary violations of NCAA rules this year, three of them involving the football program, according to information obtained from UGA under open-records laws.

…

One of the football violations involved four UGA players receiving complimentary tickets to an NFL game from a friend playing in the league. The resolution in that case, Baumgartner said, was for the players to repay the cost of the tickets.

Georgia wouldn’t release the names of the players, citing a federal law regarding the privacy of student records.

The two other football violations involved NCAA rules limiting phone calls to recruits.

In one case, a coaching staff member left a message for a recruit after another staff member spoke with the player the previous day. The penalty was a two-week ban on calling the recruit.

In another case, a UGA booster telephoned a recruit. The booster received “education” on the rules, Baumgartner said.

I’m not questioning the violations or the penalties in terms of whether Georgia deserved them. But I am curious about the fact that there was punishment meted out in all three cases. Is this a case of double standards, or simply better reporting than we’ve seen on the Auburn and Tennessee matters?

Surely you don’t mean that repaying the cost of the tickets is “punishment”, right?

That’s standard operating procedure for all “extra benefits” violations. This is primarily because, by my reading of the rules, repaying the value of the tickets rectifies the situation and basically means that there was no “extra benefit” . . . which allows eligibility to remain unaffected.

This isn’t a Georgia/Auburn or Georgia/Tennessee issue, it’s an extra benefits issue. As far as I know, neither Chizik nor Kiffin has had an extra-benefits infraction yet.

Surely you don’t mean that repaying the cost of the tickets is “punishment”, right?

Unless you think there’s a cost to a “complimentary” ticket, yeah. I understand – and agree with – the point you’re making here, Pete, but from the players’ standpoint, they thought they were getting free tickets and instead they’re having to come out of pocket to preserve their eligibility.

16.01.1 Eligibility Effect of Violation.
A student-athlete shall not receive any extra benefit. Receipt by a student-athlete of an award, benefit or expense allowance not authorized by NCAA legislation renders the student-athlete ineligible for athletics competition in the sport for which the improper award, benefit or expense was received.

They received an extra benefit (a football ticket given to them on the basis of their status as football players). Per NCAA bylaws, those players were ineligible to compete from the moment the University learned of the benefit until such time as they repaid the value of it (See 16.01.1.1).

They were not required to repay the benefit, no harm would have come to the university if they hadn’t. They simply would’ve remained ineligible to compete.

It’s not a matter of unfair treatment, it’s a matter of Auburn and Tennessee not having any extra benefits violations.

Which is why I asked the questions I did at the end of my post. I’ve got no idea whether the penalties were mandated or whether the school imposed them voluntarily. I’ve also got no idea if UT or Auburn imposed penalties that simply haven’t been reported in the media.

The NCAA Ministry of Punishment may use Gray’s Anatomy text as a double super-secret background for determining when and when not to double super-secret probate or administer SMU-like death penalty, now done by injection [SMU was electrocuted but didn’t die in the chair so was then finished off by a lynching Wild West old school style, then resurrected itself because it was a religious school] for primary, secondary and tertiary violations that is inversely proportional to but parallels, in opposite directions, the not so secret background on the penalties for primary, secondary and tertiary syphilis, which also involve self-imposed penalties.

While I’m not concerned about any of these b/c it seems like the school was open about them, I’m really chapped about the tickets thing. It’s not like it was a booster or the coach trying to gain a competitive advantage or a player trying to impress a recruit. It was a former teammate giving friends tickets to an NFL game. It blows me away how out of touch the NCAA continues to seem to be.

Auburn and UT never commit violations! That is a conspiracy theory by left wing tree hugging liberal whackos!!!!!
But if they did, they would give themselves the stiffest penalties available. (wink wink) because we all know that AU and UT are nothing if not honorable………..(choke… choke…..)